


Just Another Tuesday

by vindiya



Series: Tumblr Prompts [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adrenaline rushes, Attempted Kidnapping, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Darcy just wants a bowl of soup you jerks, F/M, Flirting, Gen, Just Another Tuesday, Locked In, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers is a spoil sport, Trope Bingo Fill, Tumblr Prompt, adrenaline crashes, i'd like my taser please, not your damsel in distress, only vaguely canon compliant, panic attacks of the mild variety, well-trained Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 21:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17885141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindiya/pseuds/vindiya
Summary: As a Stark and as Jane's best friend/assistant, Darcy should know better than to ignore any threat level above blue.Then again she's a Stark and being impulsively hot-headed runs in the family.





	Just Another Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> About a year ago [itscoffeefordinner](itscoffeefordinner.tumblr.com) on Tumblr sent me a Wintershock prompt of "Hold on, you died?"/"Yeah well it didn't stick."
> 
> It's taken literally forever for me to find the right scenario for this after struggling to write a big multi-chaptered fic set post-Infinity War as part of Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo last year. But I refused to let this prompt own me and even though I've been sitting on it for ages it is finally written. I'm finally happy with the results. I did have to take a slight creative liberty with the second line of dialogue in the prompt, it wouldn't have worked with the scene otherwise but I kept the feeling behind it. 
> 
> And I finally got to try a more obvious run at the Darcy is Tony's daughter trope. I just had a lot of fun with this fic and I hope everyone enjoys it.
> 
> This work is entirely unbeta'd beyond what Grammarly, MS Word, and my eyes have caught, all mistakes are my own.

In theory, Darcy knows better. She knows that ignoring a Threat Level Orange where kidnappings are concerned is nothing to laugh at. She also knows that the security department has a running pool going of how often she will get herself kidnapped in a month. Pitfalls of her existence really between being a Stark and Jane’s assistant. (She got a promotion that involved an actual paycheck about nine months after Space Elves invaded Greenwich.) Not that it stopped her from periodically playing the pool for all it was worth and cleaning up when the mood struck her. In the last three months, it had, and she was currently sitting pretty on a very nice hunk of extra spending money that didn’t come out of her trust-fund.

Add that she’s gone through probably eight different kidnapping preparedness seminars. Had at least one assigned tutor a year since she turned twelve and outed herself as Tony’s kid and yeah Darcy really should know better than to ignore Threat Levels higher than Blue. But she doesn’t care.

She’s craving like full on she will tase someone craving a bowl of potato and bacon soup from the bistro four blocks up the street. The same bistro that calls her when they have something, she enjoys on the menu that day to see if she’ll be swinging by and they should save her a bowl or two. The same bistro that seems to have figured out that she can only come by once in a thirty-day period and greets her as such. The only bistro that according to Captain fucking America she couldn’t go to anymore because there was a higher incidence of her getting kidnapped from that location than anywhere else.

As if. 

The first thing that sets off her warning bells is the guy at the hostess station. He’s new, his face a little rougher than the usual kid that greets her with a smile and nod to the bar. There’s stubble along his jaw and she’s pretty sure she can see a pink scar peeking out of his hairline as he stares at her arms crossed over his chest, mouth set in a line as he eyes her up and down.

The lock on the door slides home and she whirls hands diving into her purse only to remember that her taser was removed from her possession temporarily, after one too many accidental discharges foiling attempted kidnappings.

Well this is going to suck, she has long enough to think before three burly men are diving for her and she’s hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes to avoid the hands making beelines for her shoulders, neck, wrists; anything they can get their hands on. She can’t roll out of the center they move too fast for that. She’s barely rolled up onto her knees when the scarred one is grabbing her hair yanking her head back with enough force that she can feel the joints pop in protest.

 _Always wear your hair up_ , she hears Natasha scold her in the back of her mind. 

That was one anti-kidnapping drill she never wanted to repeat, and she just knew she was going to if this got out. Natasha was a god damned slave driver when it came to personal safety, and that was with regular self-defense lessons from a young age for Darcy. The oldest Stark child had nothing on the Widow’s ability to thoroughly knock the wind out of her with a flick of her fingers.

“I swear to god next time I get my hair cut it’s all coming off,” she mutters leaning into her attacker to ease some of the tension in her neck.

“What was that?” 

“Next time you’re getting tased in the balls,” she snaps back as she nearly dives onto her hands and sweeps her leg out and under the goon with his hand in her hair. 

The other two goons stare a moment before jumping to action again with punches and kicks. There was at least one thrown knife. Darcy can’t be sure if there was more, but she knows there was one because she’s got the cut through her favorite sweater to prove it. She’s not a fool though, she knows she can’t overpower three well-trained mercenaries. Though her instincts say there has to be more. Good squads usually involve slightly larger numbers and while three is plenty enough for her, she’s waiting for that other shoe to drop as she dodges, punches, and kicks her way back to the door. 

The lock is an easy thing to remedy. Whoever planned this little attempt didn’t spring to upgrade the lock to one that needs a key from either side. It was still the basic flip lock on the inside, and she flicks it unlocked and dashes out the door. 

The street is as busy as any at midday in the city. She does her best after running out of the bistro to blend with the crowd. Her hands stuffed in her pockets, head ducked slightly to avoid accidental eye contact. Look natural and keep moving her training screamed at her. Her eyes scan the people around her furtively, landing a moment on the suit with his ear pressed to a cell phone a couple paces ahead that wasn’t moving quite in time with the crowd. 

_They’ll come at you one from the front, one from behind. Box you in don’t let them_. Captain America’s voice reminds her. She doesn’t check over her shoulder, just trusts what he taught her (even if he is an insufferable do-gooder) and turns down an alley and prays it doesn’t come to a dead end. Unlike certain super serumed heroes she lacked a photographic memory. An amazing ability to spot patterns and write code that was just this side of making her dad jealous yes, but have all the cross streets and alleys of New York City memorized? No that was not a gift Darcy had.

Luck has other plans as the alley has a chain link fence strung across it at the midpoint. She could scale it, should scale it if those goons trying to box her in were anything to judge by. A look over her shoulder proves she’s right as they slink toward her confident that she wouldn’t do the monumentally insane thing and try the fence. In every show, she ever watched it almost never worked and while it looked like there was plenty of room for her to get up and over logic said once she was struggling to make it up, they’d start running and pull her down before she cleared the top. Maybe if she’d come at it at a run, she might have made it. Inertia had a way of helping things like this along. 

Her thumb runs along the edge of the panic button in her coat pocket. The device sent out an alarm if one of two things happened: she pressed the button or anyone not having her biometric signature pressed the button. A bad guy only accidentally activated it once, and the Avengers made sure to disappear those baddies quite nicely to keep that tidbit from getting out. Good lord right now she would kill to be Peter holed up with his aunt in Queens being the crazy spider-themed superhero getting the cool gear from dad. But she was not that child, and she was going to do the stupid thing because like hell she was giving those grinning jerks in security the chance to gloat.

Steeling herself for the inevitable sound of feet pounding pavement (honestly, it’s amazing they haven’t started running for her yet anyway) Darcy wraps her fingers around the first handhold she can reach and starts climbing. Gritting her teeth, she moves as fast as she can. _You have about fifteen seconds Darcy_ , she keeps a mental countdown as she scrabbles to find places to fit her feet. This would be so much easier if she had mutant spider climbing power like Peter.

She fully expects hands to yank her off the fence, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, she hears grunts, groans, and fists connecting with bodies. There’s an all too familiar crack of bone under bond and she winces despite herself, but she keeps climbing. The last thing she hears before the alley is silent but for her heavy breathing was the pop of gunshots and the tink of metal on metal. There’s a brief strangled cry and then silence. She’s reached the top of the fence leg slug over the top and her chest heaving for breath when she dares to look back and see what happened.

Five men litter the alley all prone, all unconscious. There is a sixth standing in the center of the carnage back to her, shoulder length brown hair swaying with the light wind that the alley sucks in. Then he looks over his shoulder at her head still tucked and the menacing posture screams she should be scared. Darcy would be too if she hadn’t seen it a million times before from a half dozen highly trained agents that used to work for SHIELD and now worked for Stark Industries Avengers Initiative branch. Lack of fear does not, however, mean she’s going to clamber down just yet.

“You good up there, doll?” He asks his voice rough and his fists tighten and relax like he’s working something out himself.

“Yeah peachy. Should I be worried about a competing contract? Because no offense but that’s happened before, and I’d prefer to know which side of the fence I should be on when I get down.” 

“If there were do you think I’d tell you?” He turns part way toward her, and she gets a look at his face and she can’t help the low whistle. Oh, Captain America is going to be so jealous of her when she gets back.

“Fair enough,” she quips and drops down on the same side of the fence she started on, “Aren’t you supposed to be evading capture in Europe or something these days?”

His mouth quirks up at the corners as he gives her a once over, eyes skimming over her from head to toe and while the guy at the bistro did the same thing this feels a little less like a half-hearted attempt to gauge her threat level and a real honest to god assessment. Satisfied by whatever he sees he holds out a hand to her, “Someone’s gotta make sure Stevie isn’t getting into trouble.”

“He’s always getting into trouble how is – you know what don’t want to know. Thanks for the assist but I’ll be on my way.” Much as she wants to take the proffered hand, she’s not going to do that. Steve might trust who he was, but outside of the bodies around them, she doesn’t have any grounds to do it. And every ounce of training Tony ever made sure she got was telling her that was a bad bad bad idea right now.

For his part he doesn’t look hurt, just nods in approval and his hand returns to his side. “Good luck to you. They have another squad about five blocks north so you may want to avoid that.”

“What not planning on sweeping in to save the almost damsel a second time today?”

“Sorry doll can’t,” he murmurs walking toward the mouth of the alley.

“Gonna miss your hair appointment?”

“It isn’t easy getting hair that looks this fine.”

“Whatever you say, Fabio,” she fires back coming up next to him at the opening before glancing to her left. There was a safe house that way that she could slip into for a while if she managed to avoid any more goons.

The man just chuckles and turns right disappearing into the crowd. Even with her best attempts to keep track of him, he’s gone within in a block lost among the passersby and she shakes her head. He was good, very good. Probably better than Natasha and that was saying something, the woman lived for disappearing only to pop and scare you when you thought she was gone already.

Pulling her purse tighter over her shoulder Darcy turns left and makes her way through the pedestrians toward the safe house. The trip manages to go without incident, largely helped by Barnes’ hint about the squad. Took a little longer but she made it to the run-down apartment building. The walls were grungy and the pain fading, but the floors were clean. The super was a good one, a retired SHIELD agent that understood the necessity of secrecy and having a safe place to lay low. 

Pulling the gate on the old-fashioned elevator closed she stabs the fourth-floor button and leans against the wall for the ride up. The upper floors didn’t look much better, but the lighting was slightly brighter to make ne’er do wells think twice about trying to hide in the minimal shadows.

Apartment 4F is an unassuming brown door. It looks the same as every other door in the hall with its cheap number and letter stickers to denote which unit it was. A peephole that was much better equipped than most in the building having a camera and facial recognition scanner built in. The door know is simple, but the tumblers are near impossible to pick. Tony had Natasha try for security purposes on several occasions. 

She knocks open the biometric scanner in the door jamb and presses her palm to it. The lock clicking and the electromagnets holding the door closed turning off. The faint hum of them disappearing for the brief window allotted for her to get inside. Most people didn’t notice them but spend enough time around them and you start to notice them in the comforting white noise sort of way. 

Pushing the door open Darcy stops dead in the doorway, her purse sliding from her arm and to the floor with a heavy thump.

“What the fuck?”

At the end of the hall framed perfectly in the doorway in a black tank top and jeans stands on James Buchanan Barnes that she swears she parted with twenty minutes earlier at the mouth of an alley maybe eight blocks from Avengers Tower. And despite that, he's standing right there concern draining from his face as his mouth twists into a grin.

“Took you long enough, shut the door would you.” He says before turning away into the kitchen to continue whatever he was doing before she got there.

“How the hell did you get in here?” She asks the door closing with a heavy thud as the electromagnets kick back in and pull the reinforced door back into place.

“Guess,” his smirk is turning shit-eating and she could just smack it off his face. Arrogant. That’s the word she wants for him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be amnesiac or something?” She tosses back instead.

“I was highly motivated to get what they took back.”

“You do realize that when Tony figures out you’ve been crashing here, he’s going to kill you.” Because there is no doubt as she moves down the hall to the kitchen that he’s been crashing there for a while now. There’re little signs in the bedroom and bathroom that’s practically moved in. There’re clothes sticking out from the closet that aren’t gender neutral standard issue. The toiletries she can glimpse in her passing on the sink more personal than the unscented and nondescript items she’s ordered in bulk more times than she cares to count.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been reported as deceased.” The way his blue eyes dance at the statement make her pause and she pulls up short at the door into the kitchen from the hall. She blinks.

“Hold on, you died?”

“In a manner of speaking. It didn’t stick as you can see.”

“Natasha…” she breathes and the way his shoulders straighten provides most of the answers to his earlier tease, “She added you to the database.” 

Darcy pinches the bridge of her nose because she’s already envisioning the lines of code, she’s going to have to go over to see how badly broken things are from Nat’s meddling. The Widow is good in the sense that she’s a battering ram when it comes to coding. All brute force very little finesse, largely due to the nature of the work she used to do for the KGB and Fury. 

“She might have,” Barnes hedges.

“I’m going to kill her for fucking with my code.”

“And I would pay very good money to watch, but maybe pick an opponent that couldn’t kill you with a couple well-placed punches.” He doesn’t sound worried when he speaks if anything he sounds amused which makes her turn a sharp look on him.

“Do you have any idea how many hours of squinting at a computer screen are in my future?” Darcy snaps.

“No but I’ll be here when you’re done if you want to plot revenge.” He turns to the cabinets and pulls a box of cereal from the shelf and a bowl. He sets both items down and pours a healthy helping for corn flakes into the dish and puts the box away. He adds milk, fishes a spoon out of the dish strainer and takes a bite.

“If you don’t actually mean that, you will regret it when I show up at 3 am one night slightly hungover and demanding revenge plotting.”

“Doll if you show up at 3 am I’m tucking you into bed. Revenge plotting is always best handled sober and wide awake.”

Something about the way Barnes says he’s tucking her into bed makes her stomach flip. Between the shimmering baby blues, broad shoulders, and a backside that she swears rivals Thor’s Darcy is sure he’s very aware of the effect he has on women and he’s working it right now.

“Keep talking and I might be persuaded to work with that.”

“I hope you do. Be a pity if that display at the bistro earlier was just a one-off.”

Darcy sidles closer, leaning into his space, and then dances right around him to help herself to whatever was in the cabinets. Usually, she’d be a little more respectful of boundaries but technically the safe house was her dads and well that kind of made it partially hers given her stock options. Food first and then she'd check out the damage from the knife in the bistro.

“Just another Tuesday, Barnes. If Tony hadn’t taken my taser you have been in for a treat.”

“So, this happens often.”

“Threat of kidnapping has not dropped below Blue since I was fourteen. And they _really_ like Tuesday’s.” She finds a package of Twinkies and opens the wrapper hoisting herself onto the counter as she bites into the yellow sponge cake.

“Why?” 

“Tony’s my dad.”

The way Barnes nearly chokes on his bite of cereal is precious. There’s always a couple of different ways that goes when she tells people she’s related to Iron Man. Some think she’s making it up. Others think she’s the coolest girl they’ve ever met. Barnes just laughs and shakes his head once he gets his cereal to go down right. She finishes the Twinkie while he recovers pleased with herself.

“I gotta say I wasn’t expecting that, but it makes sense. Not many dames out there that would risk going to kidnapping central without being a least a little impulsive.”

Darcy sits taller and smiles widely, “Oh stop you’ll make me blush if you keep complimenting me like that.”

His eyes flash and he moves closer caging her in on the counter, his cereal set aside. “Maybe that’s the idea.”

“Oh boy, don’t you just say all the nicest things.” 

_Stop flirting with the recovering amnesiac Darcy. Stop flirting right now,_ she commands herself as she fans her suddenly warm face. 

“I try. Used to be a lot better at this.”

“You’ve still got it Barnes, but maybe save it for the 3 am revenge call?”

Barnes steps back and nods, “Go call your dad to let him know your safe. I’m sure the squad I knocked out has been in contact already.”

She blinks at the shift in his demeanor but nods. “I wish they’d stop demanding ransom when they don’t even have me. It makes this part less weird.” Sighing she leans back against the cabinets and glances up at the ceiling. “JARVIS you online?”

“Of course, miss,” JARVIS chirps cheerfully.

“Delta Echo Lima 911.” She rattles off almost like she’s ordering a pizza.

“Darcy Elizabeth Lewis where are you?” Tony’s voice nearly reverberates off the soundproofed walls and Darcy rolls her eyes at Barnes which makes his cheek twitch in what she imagines is suppressed laughter. 

“The safe house downtown. Will you chill?”

“I will not chill. They just called in for a quarter of a billion dollars as ransom.”

“That’s all, damn I’m getting cheap these days.”

“Darcy…” Tony groans.

“Chill. I’m safe. Got lucky lost them in an alley and made it here without incident. Go do your Iron Man thing and send me a car when it’s safe to come home.”

The silence stretches and Barnes opens his mouth to speak and she presses her fingers to his lips to stop him. Tony still very much connected. The safe house had cameras but when she got old enough to know they were there she added a protocol to the code to disable them when her biometrics registered as an authorized occupant.

“Fine. ETA is three hours.” Tony finally gives in likely having had a full conversation with Pepper while his end of the connection was silent, “And tell Barnes that if he hurts you in the meantime he’s going to have far worse to deal with than the contract to work off his bill for staying at the safe house.”

The stunned look on Barnes’ face is enough to send her giggling, “He heard you. Pretty sure you’ve scared him into going on the run for real Tony.”

There's another pause and he sobers, the anger was gone from his voice and replaced with concern, "Are you hurt?"

"I may have a small flesh wound on my arm from some jerk with a knife. Haven't gotten to the bathroom to check." She leans forward into Barnes head hitting his shoulder. God Tony had to pick now to go all fatherly come on she's not sixteen anymore."

"Get it looked at. Barnes should be able to help with that."

"Yes dad. Now, will you go do your Iron Man thing?" She's getting exasperated with his display. It's been years since he got quite so keyed up about a run of the mill attempt at abduction.

“Yeah yeah, three hours Darcy.”

“Three and half Tony.”

The connection goes dead as easily as it went live. There’s no warning unless you know what you’re listening for but once it does, she pulls her fingers from their place against Barnes mouth.

“Three and a half?”

“That’s the thing you’re going to question? Our sign off and not what terrible thing he’s prepping for you to repay squatting in the safe house?”

“I figure he’s just going to expect me to work with the Avengers.” He says with a shrug and the sad thing he probably isn't far off the mark.

“It’s plan b. JARVIS countdown please.”

“Three and half hours starting now. My apologies Mr. Barnes but you will be unable to leave the premises until an approved biometric is registered at the door.”

“Lockdown?”

“I said plan b. If no one comes in three and a half hours, we run like our lives depend on it.”

“Some of them already do doll.”

“Well then it’ll be two.” She pauses looks around the kitchen and frowns. He’s moved a few things. “There was a box against that wall where’d you put it?”

Barnes glances where she points before disappearing into the living room. He comes back with a box in his hands and sets it next to her on the counter. It’s cardboard and easy to open. But it does a nice job of keeping the lockbox inside hidden. Nondescript with its black sharpie scrawl of ‘clothes’ on each side.

“I’m guessing it’s not clothes.”

“I thought you were a world class assassin.”

“I know there’s a lockbox in there.” He says with a heavy roll of his eyes.

“Very good there is and inside is my back up.”

“Taser?”

“Good guess.” She hops off the counter. Only aware of how close he is when her feet hit the floor and her chest bumps his. She glances up and then ducks head as she slips by him to the living room. Welp, there’s still three hours and twenty-six minutes to go might as well see what the damage is and then check the security feeds.

Barnes stays silent at first, and he doesn’t follow her. It’s a slight surprise, but Darcy doesn’t mind she needs the space to decompress. Just because it wasn’t her first kidnapping attempt didn’t mean that she wasn’t unaffected by them. The adrenaline still kicked in. She still went through fight or flight. She just had more practice at keeping those reactions from clouding her thinking. Her many tutors would be so proud. Gag her please ick.

The bathroom is tiny, just barely bigger than a closet with its shower stall, pedestal sink, medicine cabinet, and toilet wedged within. The fan is a loud roar when she flicks the light on once the door is closed behind her. Stripping off her sweater she inspects the hole in the fabric first. It's a clean slice meaning the damage to her skin shouldn't be horrific. Sure enough, when she focuses on her arm it's a thin red line barely deep enough to warrant a band-aid.

She rummages in the medicine cabinet a moment to find an alcohol wipe and runs it over the cut and smoothes a thin coating of antibacterial cream over it and adds a band-aid if only because she'll get a lecture if she doesn't. She got extremely lucky. There was an endless number of ways it the fight could have gone that ended in her with a gash or worse instead. Pulling her sweater back on Darcy throws the wrappers and used first aid items in the trash can, flicks the light off and exits.

Barnes isn't in the kitchen anymore. His cereal bowl gone from its spot on the counter. She doesn't give it much thought, he's as stuck in the apartment as she is for the next three and a half hours. May as well kill time watching whatever crap is on the security feeds and heads for the living room where the TV has a direct hook up to the pinhole-sized security cameras around the building instead of cable.

She settles on the couch, the TV bringing up the security feeds without her asking. Thank Tony for JARVIS, the AI was truly a godsend when she was coming down. Her knees tucked up under her chin heels resting on the edge of the cushion as she watches. Though in reality, she’s staring but not seeing. The panic she swallowed up in her efforts to take care of herself rises and she wraps her hands around her ankles to keep the shaking minimal.

Darcy doesn’t realize Barnes has joined her until an arm wraps around her shoulders and another under her knees and she’s lifted unceremoniously into his lap. He fits her so simply against his chest (a very hard and muscled chest the non-panicking part of her brain supplies in the back of her mind). His arm under her knees moving to curl around her waist as he pillows her head on his shoulder. Fingers slipping into her hair and carding through the strands in slow comforting pulls.

“I got you,” he murmurs when the shaking stops.

“Thanks.” 

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Which part? The fact that I was working month three without a kidnapping attempt and really cleaning up the Security Teams betting pool or that it’s ridiculous that I still have delayed panic attacks about nearly getting kidnapped?”

He shifts how she’s sitting in his lap to look at her, his blue eyes are so clear she could drown in them. There’s no judgment there, no surprise just blatant admiration, his mouth a small smile as his fingers continue to card through her hair.

“Either part or neither. Whatever you want or nothing at all. I’ve got you until someone comes to pick you up.” His voice is so warm and soft when he speaks. Like honey in the low rumble against her shoulder and she fights the purr that bubbles up in response. She’s always been more tactile and sound responsive than anything else. And if this were any other situation, she’d be thoroughly pleased by how many triggers he trips without even trying.

“And when someone lifts the lockdown?”

“I thought you said it was plan b?”

“It’s a lockdown too.”

He lets out a small amused puff and noses into her hair a moment. Or she thinks he does he could have been trying to itch it without being rude as she rests her head back on his shoulder. He’s distractingly warm. Ridiculously comfortable. The last time she felt this safe Tony was pulling her from a collapsing building a month after returning from his own extended kidnapping. Face mask on the Mark II suit open so she could see it was him coming at her full tilt as the floor gave out beneath her feet.

“Good to know,” and the way he says it she knows he already knew that, but he was playing along because him keeping even seemed to help her and she sighs contentedly.

“You’re going to wish you didn’t pull me into your lap Barnes. I’m a downright nightmare when I fall asleep.”

“Promise I won’t complain even you strangle me with your hair.” He slides his fingers once more through her hair before his hand slips lower, firm fingers working at the knots in her neck and working lower first to one shoulder and then the other.

Darcy positively doesn’t moan at the contact. (She does moan, she is so glad JARVIS doesn’t have that on camera, Tony would kill Barnes.) And Barnes just chuckles clever fingers rubbing soothing circles into her back when the tension is gone from her shoulders.

“You should have been a masseur.” She mumbles nuzzling his neck.

“You wouldn’t be the first to say so. Go to sleep, I’ll wake you in an hour.”

“Hour and a half.”

“Plan c?” He teases.

“No, a full sleep cycle.”

He nods, “Hour and a half then.”

It doesn’t take much for her to drift off. And once she does, her dreams are oddly peaceful considering the near miss. It’s rare for her to sleep so well afterward. Normally, there’s at least one nightmare. Her dreams are snippets of sunlight and fields, laughter, strawberries, and wine. It’s a nice combination, pleasant and has a smile on her face when Barnes gently brings her back wakefulness with a hand on her shoulder and light intermittent shake.

“So soon?” she warbles her voice thick with sleep.

“It’s been an hour and thirty-five minutes. You didn’t tell me you were near impossible to wake up.” He grins at her and sighs.

“I didn’t octopus you did I?” She asks sitting up a little straighter. Nope no octopus, she’s very much still in the same position she was when she fell asleep, curled into his body like it was a second skin, her fingers curled into his shirt over one well-defined pec.

“Not this time doll, maybe next time.”

“You going to be making a habit of occupying all my safe house options when I do something stupid?”

“I don’t know but I might make it a habit to swoop in when you run out of options.”

“There’re always options Barnes.”

“Scaling a chain link fence is a bad option.”

“It was one option more than zero though.” She shoots back as she stands. She’s not mad, and she doesn’t get the feeling Barnes isn’t so much admonishing her as finding her thought process as interesting. She tried even if it was a bad option, which she knew at the time, but it was better than letting herself stay cornered and captured.

“At least I know it’ll never be boring?” He grins spreading his arms over the back of the couch now that she’s no longer occupying a grand amount of his physical space.

Her eyebrow raises, “What will never be boring?”

“How I’m to repay your dad for squatting,” he practically sing-songs and something about the way his grin has regained its shit-eating edge makes her stomach bubble with nerves. Tony wouldn’t dare.

“He didn’t,” she breathes. He’s only been threatening for years. Years. At least twice a year since she was sixteen. Every time her mom and Pepper were able to talk him down. Back from that crazy privacy invading line that the way Barnes grin widens makes her groan.

“Meet your new bodyguard,” he says pulling up to tower over her his hand held out between them, “James Barnes, but you can call me Bucky.”

“Darcy Lewis,” she responds automatically her hand sliding into his to shake before dropping it. Her eyes wide as she takes him in. He’s too pleased and her eyes narrow at him. “I swear to god if this is one giant ruse to complete a kidnapping contract you will regret it.”

Bucky just chuckles hand going to his heart with a roll of his eyes, “You sure you aren’t Miss Potts kid too? She said something similar when she called to offer the job.”

“They hadn’t met yet when I was born. He was still roaming around philandering back then.” Though she’s still giving him one hell of a hairy eyeball. And then an idea hits her, and she smiles widely in a look that is all Tony right before he sets a terrible plan in motion. “Did they offer hazard pay?”

His eyes narrow and he leans back on his heels studying her, mouth set in a thin line. “No, but I’m thinking I may need to renegotiate that with that look alone.”

“Only if the day ends in y.”

“Which is all of them.”

“Exactly.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed. Till next time.
> 
> I've turned this into a series. If you liked what you read and were hoping for more check out the series Just Another Tuesday and subscribe to it for updates on new entries. Again thank you for reading and the marvelous comments.


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